Crawford leads Walgreens in unifying pharmacy, wellness

By Jim Frederick

DEERFIELD, Ill. —Walgreens’ long campaign to overhaul and integrate its pharmacy and clinical health components culminated March 1 in the restructuring of its healthcare divisions to create a unified pharmacy, health and wellness solution. That solution, Walgreens reported, is tailored to meet the needs of employers, managed care organizations, pharmacy benefit managers and government clients searching for more cost-effective care for their health plan members. And that group is led by EVP Kermit Crawford.

“Simply put, we are integrating Walgreens’ 70,000 healthcare providers, on the front lines of health care across the organization, with a unified sales team offering pharmacy, health and wellness solutions for the benefit of our payer clients and their patients,” president and CEO Greg Wasson said.

The changes are wide-ranging and include shifts in management. Walgreens’ health services division’s specialty pharmacy, infusion pharmacy, mail-service pharmacy, medical campus pharmacies, long-term care pharmacy and home care services will move to the company’s core pharmacy division, which is led by Crawford.

Walgreens has created a new, combined “Pharmacy, Health and Wellness Solutions” sales and client services organization. Joe Terrion, who has been chief client officer in charge of sales and service in the health-and-wellness division, will lead the group. Terrion will continue to report to Hal Rosenbluth, Walgreens’ SVP and president of health and wellness.

In line with the overhaul, Walgreens Health Services president Stan Blaylock will leave the company in April, following a transition period, to pursue “new entrepreneurial opportunities in the healthcare field,” the company noted. Blaylock was a co-founder and CEO of Medmark Specialty Pharmacy Solutions before the company was acquired by Walgreens in 2006.

In total, the result of the changes, according to Wasson, will be “a unified offering to payers in the healthcare marketplace,” as well as increased efficiencies across Walgreens’ pharmacy, health and wellness operations. The reorganization also will “provide savings in overhead as some overlapping functions are consolidated,” the company noted.